Many Paths to Tread
by Lirazel
Summary: The rest of the seventh year Gryffindors have their own battles to fight. A series of very short postHBP vignette/character sketches
1. Clouds

**Many Paths to Tread**

The rest of the seventh year Gryffindors have their own battles to fight.

A series of very short vignettes/character sketches about Lavender, Dean, Parvati, Seamus, and Neville. Just because they're on the outskirts of the Story most of the time doesn't mean they don't have their own stories to tell.

_Disclaimer: I don't own _Harry Potter_ or any of the characters found in this fic, nor can I think of any particularly clever way of saying so._

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Clouds

Everyone's always thought of her as shallow, and perhaps she is.

She _likes _gossiping, swooning over boys, reading _Teen Witch_, perfecting new glamour charms, falling in love. It's _easier_, you see, easier than all _that. _When your mind is full of these petty things—and she does recognize them as petty, whether anyone believes that or not—there isn't room to worry about all that's happening _out there_. No room for Death Eaters and Dementors and Dark Marks and Unforgivable Curses and You-Know-Who.

Yes. No one knows it, but it's a calculated thing, this shallowness. Parvati suspects, though, like a good friend, she doesn't say anything. And sometimes she'll look up in the middle of an especially boring History of Magic class and find Seamus watching her, eyes steady and too-knowing, and she's certain he sees right through her. But these moments are few and far between, and most of the time she floats along in a protective cloud of perfume and gossip and chiffon.

Well, that was how she was. The shield was strong, a security blanket so very carefully maintained. If Hermione had known how hard she worked at it, she would have been appalled, said, "Honestly, Lavender, if you devoted half as much will power to homework…."

She used to be able to snort about things like that, to giggle. Now she thinks the other girl might have been right.

Now, all her work has come to nothing. She'll be floating along for a few days, secure in her cloud, and then it will dissipate so suddenly that she staggers backwards, feeling as overwhelmed as when she walks out of the ancient darkness of a side corridor into the courtyard and the full light of the sun. Because there is McGonagall, ramrod straight and looking strangely small in the chair that should—that always did—belong to Dumbledore. And there's a glimpse of the empty Quidditch pitch through the Astronomy Tower window—abandoned because it's simply too dangerous for the whole student body to be outside of the protective charms of the Castle for any period of time. And when she goes to classes, there are three empty seats in the corner, and class is strangely quiet, awkward, tense without a hand that flies into the air at every question and blue eyes that roll and a quiet grin under a thatch of black hair and a scar shaped like a bolt from the storm to come. And the corner of the Common Room that was _theirs_ is empty and everyone eyes it awkwardly, avoiding it because there is nothing to be said and no way not to notice. Even when she flees to her dorm room, there is no respite—because there is an empty bed on the wall by the window.

It's impossible even for her, Lavender Brown, Teen Witch Extraordinaire, to ignore, and so her annoying giggles—she knows they were annoying; she's always known—never fill the Common Room; and the whole Gryffindor table in the Great Hall isn't treated to the latest gossip during breakfast, lunch, and dinner; and she never floats from one boy to another, enjoying the game and the chase.

Instead, she tries to focus on schoolwork: not boring things like Ancient Runes or even something like Divination—which she now realizes is next to worthless—but Defense Against the Dark Arts and Charms and the new Occulmency class and—yes, even Potions. And at meals she talks quietly with Parvati and Seamus and Dean and even Neville, planning out futures no one is sure they'll ever see. And at night in the Common Room, she clings to Seamus, not the way she used to hang on Ron, when everything was still new and exciting and all about feeling, but with the undeniable urge for something _more_, the need to comfort and give comfort and for just a few minutes know that they're both still alive, sitting quietly in the circle of his arms and watching the fire die.

Because, if she's honest, as she cannot help but be, she's scared to death. She knows what's coming. Everyone does. And she hates herself now, just a little, because of all the time she wasted when she could have been preparing. And she knows that she—or someone she cares about—won't make it through this.

Because, after all, no one can ignore the black clouds gathering in the sky.

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I know. I was as angry with Lavender as anyone else during HBP (even though it wasn't really her fault that Ron was a complete moron), but I think there's always more to a person than meets the eye, and, even though I'm more of a Hermione, I've always suspected that it's hard to be the Lavender Brown.

Feedback is my fuel.

Next up: Dean


	2. Somebody Else's Skin

Many Paths to Tread

The rest of the seventh year Gryffindors have their own battles to fight.

_Disclaimer: I don't own _Harry Potter_ or any of the characters found in this fic, nor can I think of any particularly clever way of saying so._

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Somebody Else's Skin

His little brother—smaller only in age, for David took after his father and not their mother—always makes fun of him, calling him a "sensitive, artistic soul," picking up on the words Gran uses. The label has little to do with the fact that he spends hours scribbling with crayons all over the walls—he gets a scolding, and Mum's knees are sore after kneeling to scrub it all day—or drawing with chalk on the sidewalk outside or that the teachers always exclaim over his finger-painting and his construction paper concoctions. It doesn't have anything to do with the fact that he will be walking up the stairs to get the football and gets distracted at the open window—the achingly blue sky going on into infinity (sometimes he thinks that blue is God). It isn't even really about the way that he arranges the food on his plate into patterns, into colors that compliment instead of clash, though Merlin knows David mocks him enough for that.

He suspects it is more because he hates watching David incinerate ants with his magnifying glass. Or that Darla always runs to him when their brother is picking at her.

It wasn't that he is a wimp—he's the one to kill the snake with the rock when Danielle stumbles over it when they're visiting their grandparents' farm and he beats up more than one neighborhood boy for making fun of his half-sisters or making not-very-subtle comments about the Thomas family's skin.

But he hates it when he's doing it. He realizes his problem slowly, like a spring dawn. He simply has the uncanny and very uncomfortable ability to put himself in someone else's place. No matter how cruel someone is, no matter how small the insect, he can always understand exactly where someone is coming from. Most people would call it a gift.

He sees it as a curse.

You can't kill ants when all you can think about is the way the fire would make your skin crack, peeling back and burning the edges black, shriveling your body as you twitch in agony, the relief of death so very far away. You can't take joy in beating someone up when you know that he only says the things he says because he is jealous and insecure and the drunken lout at home has never taught him how to be a real man.

It would be easier then, growing up, if he wasn't that way. And it is a bit easier after he comes to Hogwarts and meets Seamus, his first best-friend beside his baby sister, and discovers that Charms are a whole lot like art and that Ancient Runes means that symbols—drawings—have power. That's the way it seems during his first years. At the beginning, Hogwarts seems like a completely sheltered place, cut off from the outside world where no one has to worry about the gathering darkness outside. Then, when that darkness invades his sanctuary, it still isn't that bad—if there is fighting to be done, Dumbledore and Harry and Ron and Hermione will take care of it. He can focus on Charms and the latest Quidditch scores and beating Seamus in Exploding Snap and sending letters covered with doodles charmed to move to Darla and Mum.

Dumbledore's Army changes all that. At the time, the very idea makes his stomach roil, but then he thinks of Cedric's body lying on the ground. And he remembers that all summer, every time he closed his eyes he _was_ Cedric—the fear, the burning pain a split second before darkness descends, final and absolute—and he _was_ Harry—watching in horror, completely powerless as the unthinkable happens—and he _was_ Mr. Diggory—the soul-deep sorrow, bone-deep ache, blood-deep keening that only comes when you've lost the only person in the world you can't live without. And as those memories assault him, he swallows the bile in his throat and does what he has to do.

It's worse, now, so much worse. Bad enough seeing Hermione Granger lying perfectly still on Hospital Wing bed and seeing Ron's eyes when he wakes up and sees her, observing the haze gone from Luna Lovegood's eyes and Ginny Weasley's bright ones dark like after first year, and Neville's lost look and the scars on Ron's arms and chest as he quickly tries to change without anyone seeing them at night in the dorm, and the chill that comes at the wrongness of the mingled emptiness and fury in Harry's eyes—and feeling everything they feel, if only just a bit.

The blow, though, that numbs him was just last year. When Hogwarts was _invaded _and the greatest wizard of the age slain in a split second in a curse so unforgivable that he can't bring himself to think about it.

He doesn't have time to mourn the loss of Ginny, who was so lovely and strong and _bright_, or worry about the cancellation of the Quidditch he'd so been looking forward to. Now he keeps sinking into other people—becoming McGonagall and the impossible burden she never would have asked for and doesn't feel prepared to carry; and Hagrid, lost and haunted without his two best friends and allies to make Hogwarts what it was; and Neville, wanting so _badly _to be with those three who are gone and yet always questioning whether he would have ever had the courage to go with them; and Ginny, who isn't really at Hogwarts any more than the three are.

He remembers at the beginning of fifth year, Dumbledore had pulled him aside, the light in his eyes not a twinkle, but a spark of understanding as sure as his voice.

_Don't worry, Mr. Thomas. You curse this gift now, but in the future it will be invaluable. It makes life uncomfortable, of course, but no life worth living is without its discomforts, even its little hells. This is your strength, and it will be sorely needed in the days to come. Don't fight it; save your energy for our foes. Embrace it, and it will make you strong._

But now Dumbledore and all his understanding is gone, and there are so _many _people whose pain invades his life, and yet so very, very few, and the darkness covers the sky and the blueblueblue is gone.

But he claps his hand on Neville's shoulder as they walk to Potions one day, and he nods at McGonagall across the Great Hall, and he visits Hagrid every once in a while, and he smiles at Ginny, though it hurts a little to do it.

And they don't smile or say a thing, but he feels like a little tension is gone, like smoke floating away.

And maybe empathy is much more powerful than he ever thought it was.

And maybe his curse is a gift after all.

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I got a little carried away with Dean, but that's because I know next to nothing about him besides him being a Gryffindor and dating Ginny. I might be way off base, because all of this came from my head and not canon, but I still like this installment. I'm also not real sure about the Dumbledore quote, since I find him the most challenging character to write, so I apologize if he's out of character.

Inspiration for the comment about the colors of food from _Girl with a Pearl Earring _by Tracy Chevalier. Also, I got information and inspiration on For more information, go to J.K. Rowling's website and check out the edits section under Extra Stuff. Fascinating, really.

Next up: Parvati


	3. A Table Too Small

Many Paths to Tread

The rest of the seventh year Gryffindors have their own battles to fight.

_Disclaimer: I don't own _Harry Potter_ or any of the characters found in this fic, nor can I think of any particularly clever way of saying so._

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A Table Too Small

Everything should have its place.

She tells Padma this when she's six, frustrated with the dolls and the saris strewn across the floor. She shoves plump brown fists into her waist like she's seen Mataji do and stomps her foot. _No_ saris on the floor. _No_ stuffed animals under the bed. No _things _taking over her half of the tiny room. Everything should have its place.

Company comes, cousins for a few days, grandparents for a week, and no one understands why she doesn't talk almost at all. Dinner is _awfulawfulawful_, chairs from the living room and bedrooms dragged into the dining room to accommodate more silk-clad bodies. She _hates _it. Niaz should sit there, across the way, and Anjuli in her highchair beside him. She should be just _here_, table leg knocking against her knees, right in front of the butter dish, Padma beside her, Pitaji at the head, Mataji at the foot. _Not _this mass of family squashed around a table too small despite its added leaf. She is scrunched between Niaz and a cousin she doesn't recognize, and she feels as though she is about to be squeezed right out from between them. She pictures herself flying backwards across the room before she hits the wall with a thud. She slinks away early.

When she starts school, she packs her trunk perfectly, bangles and brushes in their boxes, quills and jumpers in their spot. She is not excited about the new books like Padma—there are _people _to meet, maybe people who can _see_. She sits across from her sister on the Train, beside a girl with long hair, glinting like corn silk. She sits next to her every year. And she almost cries when she opens her trunk and finds that robes have come unfolded and barrettes have tumbled out of their boxes.

She does not complain like she used to to Padma about the robes and parchments and magazines on the floor of the dorm, though she feels slightly uneasy—that's just Lavender and that's alright—and besides, the girl with the frizzy hair is neater than she is. She doesn't sigh aloud when Professor Flitwick returns her parchments with pumpkin juice rings on them. She doesn't tidy up the chairs and the Snap cards littering the Common Room. _That's_ someone else's job, and she doesn't want everyone to look at her the way they do at her roommate—snorts, rolled eyes, sighs. But her fingernail polish bottles, bought by a Squib cousin on summer holiday, are all arranged by color. Clear, white, yellow, orange, red, pink, purple, blue, green—no black. There's a comfort in their cool glass under her fingers.

She finally understands why fourth year, and wonders vaguely why it never occurred to her before. _Things _should have places; _people _should have places.

She doesn't have one.

All her life, she's just been another of the Patil children, another one of dozens of cousins, a little shy, pretty, but not beautiful; smart, but not brilliant; good at dozens of things, but brilliant at none. She can't ace tests like Padma or play cricket like Niaz or play the sitar like Anjuli.

At school, she's just the less smart Patil twin, Lavender Brown's best friend. She isn't the Gryffindor beauty or the Gryffindor brain. She can't even play Quidditch like Ginny Weasley. She might be in the house of the lion, but she isn't particularly brave either.

There isn't one special thing about Parvati Patil.

She thinks about this as she stands face to face with the Death Eater.

No, not face to face. The coward has hidden himself behind a mask, so that she cannot tell age or gender or race or anything else.

Perhaps she is special. She stands there, bold, eyes flashing, wand unwavering, a witch, a woman, seventeen, Indian, British, a fighter, a warrior for life. She is who she is. She is Parvati Patil.

She might not have been able to turn a cat into a tea cozy on her first try, but she can throw these spells with accuracy. She might not captivate every man who lays eyes on her with her exotic beauty, but she is not ashamed to look this _thing _in the eye. She might not have a glowing destiny, full of scarlet and glory, but she has a wand and a name.

She may not be the bravest witch who ever lived, but that doesn't matter.

She has a place now, and that's all she's ever wanted.

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Poor Parvati. That was more depressing than I thought it would be.

Anyways, this bit grew out of the simple fact that I could not remember one distinguishing characteristic of Parvati. She hung out with Lavender, had a twin sister in Ravenclaw, went to the ball with Harry, is Indian…and that's it. So, instead of bemoaning what little I had to work with (as I usually do), I decided to turn it into an idea instead. Attack if you must.

Oh, and the names of the other Patil kids come from M.M. Kaye books. She's great; read _The Shadow of the Moon_.

Next up: Seamus


	4. Hero

Many Paths to Tread

The rest of the seventh year Gryffindors have their own battles to fight.

_Disclaimer: I don't own _Harry Potter_ or any of the characters found in this fic._

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Hero

He knows his faults; he can list them. He's impatient, not always as kind as he could be to people who annoy him, not nearly as dedicated to his schoolwork as his Da would like, and Merlin knows he has a temper. But he has his good qualities, and he knows those, too—his temper doesn't get in the way of self-evaluation, especially on nights that are much longer than he ever remembered night being. He can tick them off on his fingers: he can be single-minded and dedicated to the pursuit of whatever cause he deems worthwhile; he can be intelligent when he actually concentrates on something; his trust and respect is hard to gain, but once won is almost never lost; he tends to be skeptical, not trusting his gut when his brain knows better; and he is loyal.

None of these strengths or vices are flashy—nights of cold contemplation tell him that—not extraordinary at all. He's really no more talented, no more intelligent, no more dedicated or loyal than anyone else. He can—and, he's determined, will—be a good wizard, a good man, but he doesn't need anyone to tell him that he'll never be great. He will never be the hero, and that is that.

And that, you see, is the trouble. He was raised on hero stories (he refuses to call them fairytales), his grandda reading to him for hours on winter nights, stories about men, real and myths, who slew dragons and led armies and found treasures and discovered new lands and dreamed fantastic dreams for their people. This was his first education, before he could read or write, and he suspects that this, gained first, will depart last. Perhaps when he is old and all else has left him, the stories will remain.

Grandda told him the stories for a reason, strong but quiet voice rising and falling like the wave of the sea. He believed that stories are a gift, a strength, that they teach you to see visions and dream dreams, they give you something to aspire to, give you a life worth pursuing. What he now sees that Grandda didn't know or refused to face is that the dreams the stories grow are too high and lofty for an altogether unextraordinary boy with no great talents or passions at all.

He really believed _he_ could be the hero/knight/prince/king/warlord/leader until he came to Hogwarts. To be honest, it was more that he never questioned if he could. You grew up to be what you wanted to be, and he wanted to be the hero. And so he would be.

Hogwarts changed that.

Here was a boy with a scar on his forehead and eyes much too old for his body, insanely talented, heartbreakingly tragic, caught in the tension of the opposing blessings and curses of the powers that be. He took one look at Harry Potter and knew that he, Seamus Finnegan, would never be the hero of the story. He wouldn't even be the sidekick (he probably wouldn't have made a good one anyway), because that role goes to a freckled redhead in ragged robes, who, unlike Harry who can _do everything_, seems to have one overwhelming quality/passion/attribute/facet: loyalty so deep that Seamus cannot even begin to fathom it. And then there's the very unlikely heroine, with the hair too big for her head and ink-stained hands who is a know-it-all to the bone, with a brain that makes everyone else seem slightly idiotic.

After that first Halloween, when he sees the three together, settled into their roles, he knows his chance is gone. If those three had never shown up, never arrived at Hogwarts—or even if one hadn't, because he suspects that there had to be all three or there would have been nothing—he might have had his chance.

But maybe he wouldn't have made much of a hero, with his very ordinary self. And Dean would have been too busy drawing and emoting to be a sidekick (he loves him, but there are some things even best mates can't deny), and Lavender probably wouldn't make the best princess, even if she does look like one right out of his grandda's tales (she's more than people realize she is, though). That doesn't stop the regret.

So the empty compartment on the Express, the empty seats in the Hall, the empty beds in the dorms mean something different to him. When he's honest, he knows he's always resented them, has always been jealous, has hated himself just a little because he hates that he can't help but resent them.

Nature hates a vacuum. His Muggle cousin told him that one summer, and now when he lets himself, he prays that it's true. Maybe now is his chance.

And no one can jeer as he stands, wand in hand, in front of the doors to Hogwarts, Dean and Lavender on either side, Parvati and Neville and Luna and Ginny just beyond, all silently pledging that as long as they are alive, none shall pass.

There isn't much time for thinking, as spells and curses fly in a tangle of smoke and hate and leering faces behind masks and shouts filling the air. But before darkness closes in, he has time for a single thought.

Perhaps he's a hero after all.

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I'm sorry! I know it's sad! But I'm not stating for a fact that he dies, and if you want to believe otherwise, it won't bother me one bit.

Again, just trying to flesh out with what little we have.

Next up: Neville (I just love him!)


	5. Wands and Gillyweed

Many Paths to Tread

The rest of the seventh year Gryffindors have their own battles to fight.

_Disclaimer: I don't own _Harry Potter_ or any of the characters found in this fic._

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Wands and Gillyweed

When he's five it's dandelions in the garden, and when he's six it's toadstools in the cellar. Gather and crush and chop and dice—not with a knife, because he's not old enough, but an almost sharp piece of tin can from the rubbish heap. Mix in a pot, even though he can't light a fire because he isn't old enough for a wand.

He climbs up on a kitchen chair to look at his dad's wand, kept under glass, already dusty. He trips on the hem of his robes, falls off the chair onto the floor. It's stone, like Gran's scolding.

When he's eleven, it's foxgloves and daisies, and he gets his wand. Sometimes it feels as though it wants to slip out of his hand. Gran doesn't bother to take him to Olivander's like the other kids to get a wand that chooses _him_. He doesn't mind then, but later it eats at him, like he was second choice for the wand, too.

When he's twelve, it's mandrake roots, and they knock him out, and maybe it really _starts_ then. Growing things are _powerful_, powerful for you if you use them correctly, powerful against you if you don't. He goes back often to the Greenhouses to check on their growth, sneaking out with more courage then he thought he had in the sharp fall evenings and frigid, mocking winter nights, wand clutched in sweaty hand: _lumos_ and not spells that stop Death Eaters in their tracks. Frost on the glass, and he almost hears the _sound _of them growing. And they knocked him out, but they wake the others up. Powerful.

When he's fourteen, it's gillyweed, and his first great accomplishment. It _was him_ this time; he discovered it in the book; he (sort of) saved Harry Potter. He never would have won without it, and somehow it seems important. Perhaps the wand fits into his hand easier now.

When he's fifteen, it's courage, not a plant, raw and on its own, with no leaves and twigs and flowers and juices and scents. Courage, his brand at least, is clumsy yelling through blood in nose and mouth, in a place no one would ever have asked him to be, but he's _there _nonetheless. _There_. And he stumbles and it cracks and he yells and it doesn't really help. He's always been in the way. But the wand feels like it's made for his hand—

Snaps like a twig.

Now he's seventeen, and it's everything. Everything. Rose petals, mistletoe berries, belladonna, kelp, wolfsbane, asphodel, nettles, ginger roots, hellebore, Devil's Snare, fluxweed, lovage, sneezewort. And other things, besides: dragon's teeth and salamander skin and pixie droppings and Ashwinder eggs and bezoars and jobberknoll feathers and beela's hair and werewolf's blood and boggart's sweat and unicorn's horn. Gather and crush and chop and dice and mince and measure and mix and stir and boil and burn and freeze and pour and drink. Over and over. Mechanical. Exact. The wand is different—it fits his hand, chose him. He doesn't like to think that perhaps he outgrew the old one.

There's pressure now, where there never really was before, when there was only embarrassment and detention and staying after class. This _must be right_; there is no room for mistakes; _lives _hinge on whether he gets this right, if the measurement is precise, if he boils it for long enough, if he speaks the proper word. Life will slip away through his fingers that could not seem to hold onto a wand if _he_ is not right.

Not yet, perhaps, but it's coming. Professor Sprout and Madam Pomfrey seek him out after dinner on a warm fall evening. He's been planning to meet the others—Seamus and Dean and Lavender and Parvati and Luna and Ginny—out under the oak tree by the lake. But Sprout's usually beaming face is sober and Madam Pomfrey avoids his eyes. He knows what they're going to ask before they do.

_Y-yes. Of c-c-course._

And so there is no more time in the Common Room after classes and very little sleep now. Now is full of dirt under fingernails and the humidity of the Greenhouse and even the dank moldiness of the Potions Dungeon. His fingers swell up, his head aches back behind his eyes, his legs barely hold him up. It's everything now. Everything now in light of—dark of—what's coming.

Perhaps this is its own kind of courage, different from fighting on battlefields, though he knows that is where he will end up. But to wake up every morning and _know _the darkness is closing in and there is nothing you—or almost anyone—can do to stop it, and you get out of bed and move through the motions of the day and smile and workworkworkworkwork, cutting, canning, slicing, boiling, _preparing_ every single day by the flickering light of a hope that is three teenagers on a very lonely road. Perhaps this is the hardest courage of all.

At night, he stumbles into bed so very, very late, no energy to change clothes, no strength to pry fingers away from his wand, and so he dozes, clothed, wand in hand. And his courage is rising in the morning, bleary-eyed and aching, to do it all over again.

Gillyweed is a strange kind of courage.

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I've been most nervous (anxious) about this one, felt the most inadequate writing it. He's so much more than anyone really thinks he is, and I hope I didn't sell him short. Feedback is love, y'all.


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